2014 After Hours World Cup oh my god i can't wait for a month of football thread.

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Could be a dour final indeed, does anyone think the quality of games has tapered off over the course of the tournament? It started out promising, I know there's factors like the more evenly matched sides cancelling each other out etc but a lot of the knockout matches have been poor to watch.

When it comes to Sunday I want Argentina to win, only because I'd like to Messi lift the trophy.

I feel like that is the way it goes most World Cups. The group stages is always the best and most exciting part of the whole tournament. The teams seem to go a lot more hell for leather in those stages in order to make it out of the group and it seems like there are a lot more teams who feel like they have nothing to lose. Once they get out, they seem to slow down a good bit and get more conservative and the arse kind of falls out of the competition. I think the stakes just get higher as the competition goes on and no one wants to concede anything. Look at the Netherlands for example. Their match against Australia in the group stages was one of my favourite matches of the whole competition as both teams were going all out. The way they played in that match was no comparison to how they played against Argentina the other night. It's like they just reverted into this really negative style rather than taking any chances. Kind of a shame.

I hope the final is somewhat free flowing and has a bit of excitement rather than both teams just being stand-offish. I won't be holding my breath though.

I'm lovin this

Who thought it would be a good idea to let a Joe Duffy impersonator do commentary? His voice is going through my brain.